


What Lies Beneath

by Swan_Song



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Episode: s03e21-22 Juno Steel and What Lies Beyond Spoilers, Gen, I don't forgive her yet but I'm sad for her, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Post-Episode s03e21-22 Juno Steel and What Lies Beyond, Post-Episode s03e24 Juno Steel and What Lies Beyond, Sasha Wire alone with her thoughts, Sasha is a sad person and I'm sad for her, Sasha thinking about what she's done
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 16:33:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30142383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swan_Song/pseuds/Swan_Song
Summary: A lot can be said about Sasha Wire. A lot of it is unflattering, to say the least. but as impenetrable as the wall she presents seems, alone in her room the cracks show.
Relationships: Mick Mercury & Juno Steel & Sasha Wire
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	What Lies Beneath

Director W spoke very plainly and quietly to her agents. No praise, but not much reprimanding either She was cold and composed as always, face blank behind her dark shades. She showed no weakness, and that’s what they appreciated about her. That’s why she was the director. That’s why she was in charge.

And in charge she was, making change after change after change, making their operation more efficient and their agents more deadly. There was mold growing in upper management, softness in the hearts of the administration, and she weeded it out. There was a mission to be done, and she made sure it would get done. 

No matter the consequences.

_ For the Greater Good _ .

No one would see her weak. No one in Dark Matters or out of it. No one could.

_ They _ came close though. the self-identified Aurinko Crime Family.

Juno.

She didn’t allow herself to think of Juno for now. It wasn’t safe. Her hand didn’t waver, not for one second, as she shot him, aiming for the heart.

No.  _ No _ . Aiming for the Curemother Prime. She was aiming for her goal. Destroying the Class X Radical and ensuring the stability of the galaxy. It was too dangerous for even Dark Matters to have. Because despite how much she herself would’ve wanted to do good with it, she knew better than anyone that power corrupts. And that one day she won’t be strong enough to hold her position. And on that day, she couldn’t allow the Curemother Prime to pass to someone else. 

Because everything she did was for the greater good. 

She just wanted to do good for the world.

No more wars like the one that turned her parents into refugees, no more criminals like the ones who took Annie away from her - 

_ Focus, W. Stay focused on the mission at hand. _

The Carte Blanche was taken in, and the prisoners were all given proper cells. They would stay there for a while, after all. She couldn’t kill them just yet. They were her leverage. She still needed to find the second Class X Radica and destroy it. Neutralise its power. 

And for that, she needed Juno. If there was one thing she knew, one thing she was certain of beyond a shadow of a doubt, it was that Juno would come back for them. And when he did, she had the hunch it would be with the Radical. He  _ was _ willing to give up the Prime for just one of his crew-members. She wasn’t naive enough to think he wouldn’t come back for the others, but he was willing to do that much for one person. He would be willing to do a lot for the rest.

She took no joy in taking these people hostage. Not Aurinko and Ilkay (though she didn’t feel too much guilt for that), not Sikuliaq (who genuinely surprised her with his calm and sensibility, after his files made her expect a howling man-beast that would match more the moniker of the Unnatural Disaster), and Definitely not Rita, who she knew from their days in the HCPD, and was fairly certain was one of the only reasons Juno’s substance abuse problem didn’t end him in his early 20’s.

It took her a while to get back to her room in HQ, and a while longer to scan it for traps, bombs, bugs, security breaches, and all other sorts of nasty things that would be in and out of character for an ambitious agent to plant in her room to seize her position sooner than she’d like. Once she did her scan, she started methodically peeling off her blood, sweat and goo soaked uniform. She stopped to look at her reflection once she was out of it.

_ God _ she looked tired.

Sasha followed the scars with her eyes, bottom to top. Many of them were from her life as an agent, including the star-shaped scar from the blaster that barely missed her heart, back before she was made sub-director. One of her subordinates who tried to assassinate her. Others, like the slash scar on her stomach, were from her earlier days in the HCPD, struggling against the tides of goons and criminals in the rotten city that tried to drown her. Some were even self inflicted, a weak attempt on a younger Sasha’s part to remain silent, to endure, so she can get better so she can make the world better. Make people like her friends safe. Make  _ the world _ safe. It was an attempt at making an emotional pain physical. 

But not all her scars carried such bad memories. She smiled sadly as she saw the scar on her leg, from her first time sneaking out of school with Mick and Juno. She got stuck on the fence and they pulled her down. Tore her sock too. Or the one on her hand, from when she tried to pick the shards of the beer bottles Juno and her shot, back when she was practicing her grip on the gun during their academy days.

At that thought, her musing broke like those old bottles, a sharp pain seizing her chest and knocking the air out of her. For a moment she was afraid she was caught, and she’s about to be killed, but… nothing was there. No one was there. Just her and her memories and her pain, as she clutched her trigger hand.

She held it wrong this time too, she knew. Could practically hear him rib at her, laugh with her.

Just as she was shooting him through the heart.

She looked at the eyes of her reflection, and saw exhaustion. She had dark bags under her eyes, which were sunken and dark and shining with unshed tears. She was less composed as she got dressed, hands shaking, before she looked in the mirror again. She still looked like her younger self, but more tired. more sad. Her reflection was judging her as her mind replayed clips of Juno and her, just being friends, siblings.

Juno at five years old, listening to Mick’s stories about shining golden cities on the freeway, his eyes bright and full of hope. He was always one for stories.

Juno at eight, dragging himself to her home so she can help bandage the cigarette burns on his back before Ben came back home and worried about him.

Juno at thirteen, searching for Annie in the old ammunition factory with her and Mick, frustrated and scared and worried and guilty.

Juno at nineteen, clinging to her as he cried, mourning the loss of his brother as he drank. And drank. And drank.

Juno in a million small times and places, laughing with her, confiding in her, leaning on her and letting her lean on him, teaching her when she struggles, celebrating her successes in his grumpy Juno ways…

Just Juno being family.

and she  _ shot him _ .

She turned away, curling into herself. It was for the greater good. The Radical must be destroyed. She was just doing what’s right. Juno dying would’ve been an unfortunate collateral damage. And he didn’t even die in the end, so really there was nothing for her to -

Her comms rang with an inconspicuous ringtone, one only she could truly tell from her usual one.

Mick.

He was still sending her messages, despite the fact that she never replied. She was busy after all, too busy for the small lives of people who lived down there. But she still read every message. And she was very glad for this one. Maybe it will make her smile.

It didn’t. 

In fact, it only crushed her with more guilt. 

With a lot of smiling emoticons, Mick wrote to her excitedly about how his first published story got some small, insignificant award. He even sent her a file containing the story. As she read the story, she curled into herself even more. it was about them. He changed the names slightly (Sasha Contractor-Cable? Really Mick?) but it was still very much recognisable. She remembered that day, the three of them sneaking into school because she forgot her essay there and it was the last day to apply to the police academy. Despite everything, after all his grumbling and gloom, he was willing to risk his own dream for her. Just because she asked. He didn’t even know what she wanted their help for.

As she read this genuine, warm depiction of their adventure together, Sasha’s tears started falling freely. She made no sound, still traumatised by what happened the first (and only) time the other cadets (and subsequently her supervisor) in Dark Matters heard her cry, but she was heaving silently, mourning the loss of the family she had. Mourning the fact that Juno couldn’t see eye to eye with her anymore, couldn’t see that she was doing this for the greater good, to keep the world safe.

It was more than the two of them. It was bigger than them or Oldtown or Hyperion or Mars or even the whole solar system. It was the entire galaxy, the human settlements all over. She was doing it for them. For everyone. For a future of peace in the world. She wished he could see it. Work with her toward that goal. He used to, after all. Used to see things the same way. Work for the greater good even at a cost to himself. 

But he would never sacrifice family. His loyalty to his personal attachment was stronger than his loyalty to the world, and that was where they were at odds. He was willing to watch the world burn to save his family, whoever was included in it at that time, and that made him unable to make the necessary sacrifices to join her.

But in the darkness and privacy of her neat, estranged room, crying in agony over the things she’s done and the things she’s lost as she’s sitting curled up on the floor, she allowed that small, childish part of her that was Sasha Wire and not Director W to wish he was here now. Wish she was still allowed to be his family, feel that protective force of Juno Steel’s will once again, and know he would never let them hurt her. 

She used to wish for it a lot, when she was just a cadet for the first time away from home in Dark Matters HQ. She wished for it during horrendous training and horrifying fight and what could only be described as torture, physical and psychological. And she got to feel a small glimpse of it when he stopped his new family from hurting her, though she didn’t dare show how much it meant to her (the greater good above all, and she knew he doesn’t have much time left). She just wished she could be young again, just Sasha Wire and not the Director anymore.

But there was no going back on the life she chose for herself. And she didn’t  _ want _ to go back. Someone had to do the dirty work, and it couldn’t be Juno. So it had to be her.

five minutes.

That was all she allowed herself, before she had to compose herself again. In the end of those five minutes, she would be back to normal, mechanically putting the blaster under her pillow like she always did as she went to sleep. But for these five minutes, she just let herself grieve for what could no longer return, and all the bridges she burnt today. 

Many many miles away, Mick Mercury’s comms rang in a familiar tune, one he hadn’t heard in a long time. He picked them up with a happy grin, for the first reply he got frommo Sasha in a long, long time.

_ “That’s very nice. Mick. Congratulations. I’m proud of you.” _


End file.
